99pts Jeb Dunnuck

A prodigious beast of a wine that's now starting to shed just a touch of its considerable baby fat, the 2003 Château Montrose is based on 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 34% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc, and the rest Petit Verdot. It shows the richness of the vintage with its ripe, opulent core of fruit, yet it freshens up noticeably with time in the glass, offering currants, mulberries, smoked tobacco, minty herbs, and licorice. Full-bodied, deep, and powerful on the palate, it still has classic Bordeaux focus and structure. It's drinking brilliantly today with a decant and has another 20-30 years of prime drinking.

99pts Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

A candidate for a perfect score, the 2003 Montrose has been a superstar since the first time I tasted it in barrel. Showing no signs of weakening, it is an amazing wine from this fabulous terroir. It boasts a deep blue/purple color as well as a stunning perfume of blueberries, black currants, blackberries, licorice and camphor.

98pts Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

The 2003 Montrose was served blind in Bordeaux on two occasions. Picked between 11 to 26 September, it is a blend of 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 34% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc and 1% Petit Verdot. It remains one of the outstanding wines of a very black and white vintage. Without knowledge of the vintage, I was hesitant to suggest 2003, because though there is clearly fruit intensity locked up inside this Saint Estèphe, it is counterbalanced by the estate's trademark masculinity and austerity. So both on the nose and the palate it reaches this happy medium: pure blackberry, graphite and roasted herbs on the nose, perhaps even more elegant than I have observed on previous bottles. The palate is medium-bodied rather than full bodied with sturdy tannins couched in layers of seamless blackberry and cassis fruit, offset by scents of tobacco and graphite. As usual it has immense length and depth, a Montrose that is really just a few chapters into what is sure to be a longer 'book' than many other 2003s. It is not a perfect Montrose, but a couple of hairs' breadth away.

97pts James Suckling

After the 2009, this is the most exciting Montrose ever made, with intense aromas and flavors of plums, blueberries, spices, tobacco and cedar. It’s full-bodied with extremely refined tannins but a dense, delicious palate.

96pts Int'l Wine Cellar

Good medium-deep ruby-red. Super ripe, roasted aromas of black raspberry, chocolate and licorice. Wonderfully dense, sweet and lush, with an early roundness rare for this wine. A monumental St. Estephe with almost confectionery sweetness. Wonderfully horizontal, palate-saturating wine with huge but thoroughly ripe, lush tannins. It's hard to believe that a wine this rich and deep could be carrying just 13.2% alcohol. The only thing missing here is the floral topnote of 2005, but that's a quibble in this baking-hot vintage, as Montrose's cooler, water-retentive clay-rich soil handled the extreme heat and drought as well as any chateau in the Bordeaux region.

96pts The Wine Independent

This was an extreme vintage, with very little water and very hot. The 2003 Montrose is a blend of 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 34% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc, and 1% Petit Verdot. Deep garnet-brick in color, it is a little closed to start off, soon unfurling to deliver evocative creme de cassis, blackberry preserves, and fruitcake scents, giving way to hints of tobacco leaf, new leather, dusty soil, and fennel seed. The medium-bodied palate is completely coated with black fruit and savory layers, supported by firm, chewy tannins and seamless freshness, finishing earthy.

95pts Jane Anson

Famously a successful 2003, due to the location of Montrose next to the river at a spot when the Estuary is opening up, around 3km wide at this point, bringing essential breezes in the heat. There are still some pretty tight tannins even at going on 20 years old, and overall this is just so spicy and yet juicy. Roasted plums and blackberries, liqourice root, pencil lead, spiced cinnamon and turmeric, with fresher bay leaf and saffron notes on the finish. Love it.

95pts Wine Enthusiast

Thought by many tasters to be the wine of the vintage at the time of the 2004 barrel tastings. Has it retained that status? It is certainly a hugely powerful wine, monumental even. It is also finely balanced, with great dark tannins working in partnership with brooding black fruit.

95pts Wine Spectator

This is hard to distinguish as an '03, as an austere, racy profile of charcoal, black currant and iron reigns. Taut and focused, with a sense of freshness from buried bay leaf and tobacco accents, this is set apart in the vintage by drive and cut. Still a bit tight. The insider's wine in this vintage.

92pts Decanter

A year when those cooling breezes from the estuary were essential. This displays sweeter, spicier fruit character than some years, and you can feel a more exotic style of oak. You get caramel and toffee on the nose with some dark spice on the palate, but there is a seam of menthol freshness running through it and the tannins are more than holding on. This shows the quality of Montrose in spades.

Blend: 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 34% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc and 1% Petit Verdot